Within the field of computing, many scenarios involve a set of devices operated by a user, such as a mobile phone, a portable game device, and a portable media player. Each device may comprise a particular set of capabilities (e.g., a display of a particular size and quality; one or more input devices; a data store of a particular size; communication components, such as a network adapter, a cellular communication device, or a global positioning service (GPS) receiver; and an operating environment comprising a set of applications, media objects, and user data objects). Each device may operate in isolation, or may interoperate with one or more other devices and data sources accessible over a network such as the internet.
With respect to these devices, a user may wish to perform various actions. As a first example, the user may wish to access the data store of a device, e.g., in order to view the data objects stored therein, or to upload or download new data objects to or from the device. As a second example, the user may wish to install a new hardware driver or software application on the device. As a third example, the user may wish to establish or perform an interoperation of the device with another device, e.g., establishing or performing a synchronization option to synchronize the data object in the data store of the device with equivalent data objects stored in the data tore of another device.
In order to perform these actions, the user often utilizes an administrative interface of the device. As a first example, in order to install a new software package or hardware driver on a workstation computer, the user may, using the workstation computer, visit a website of a distributor of the software package or hardware driver, download an installer package, and execute the installer package on the workstation. As a second example, the user may configure a first device using a second device; e.g., in order to upload one or more media objects to a portable media player, the user may download the media objects to a workstation computer, connect the portable media player to the workstation computer, and send the media objects from the workstation computer to the portable media player. As a third example, the user may subscribe a particular device to a service that the device may access through a communication device. For example, a user may subscribe to a chat service accessible over the internet, and may register a mobile phone device with the chat service in order to engage in chat sessions of the chat service with other users through the mobile phone (e.g., by installing a software chat client on the mobile phone). In this manner, the user may perform various actions upon the devices operated by the user.